


Alive

by Mildredo



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 03:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1925253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildredo/pseuds/Mildredo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Kurt's attack (written pre-'Bash' so not entirely true to canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alive

Kurt had had a very long, weird, painful day.

Fighting with Rachel seemed like it was days ago. It felt like weeks had passed since he’d got out of bed.

He was okay. The doctors seemed sure on that, but they’d taken their time deciding. They’d been monitoring his head injuries but once the blood was cleaned off it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Heads bleed a lot. Kurt remembered reading that somewhere once. A mild concussion, nothing broken, just cuts and some impressive bruising blooming purple across his ribs. It would start turning yellow in a few days, and that was going to be very attractive. Stitches in just one of the cuts, the bigger one on his scalp. A few inches forward and that would’ve been on his face, and Kurt was thankful that a scar on his scalp would be hidden by his hair. At least until he was balding, and with his genes that was inevitable. He’d finally been discharged with a bag full of painkillers and orders to spend the next few days resting and to ease gently back into his routine over the next week or two.

He got off lightly. It could’ve been so much worse.

Stairs were hard. He had wanted to try, he’d been stubborn and refused to get straight in the elevator with Artie. Blaine held him securely, one hand on his less bruised side and one hand on his opposite shoulder, but every step made his head swim and his twisted ankle threaten to buckle under his unsteady weight. After one dreadful flight, he surrendered and Artie, anticipating that he would give up, had only gone up one floor and was waiting for him outside the shining metal doors.

Blaine didn’t let go of him until he was sitting on the bed, then only left his side to pull the curtain along its rail. He let Blaine carefully undress him, slowly removing his shirt and pants and replacing them as quickly as he could with Kurt’s favorite thick pajamas. He still felt cold in his bones from laying on the hard, wintry ground, and the warm pajamas were soft against his battered skin. Blaine removed Kurt’s damp socks, running his fingers lightly over the slight swelling on one ankle, and replaced them with a fresh pair. He guided Kurt into bed, plumped the pillows behind him, then kissed him on the forehead and turned to leave.

“Don’t go,” Kurt said, surprising himself with how small and weak his voice sounded. Blaine turned his head and smiled.

“I’ll be back in thirty seconds,” Blaine explained. “I just need to get a few things.”

When he returned, Blaine’s arms were shaking under the weight of the wooden breakfast tray, not a space left on the surface. Kurt reached out an arm to pull out the legs and Blaine set it down over his lap.

“A jug of water,” Blaine said, lifting the full jug and a cup onto Kurt’s nightstand. “So you stay hydrated.”

“Thank you,” Kurt smiled. “What’s the rest of this?”

“Warm water and a cotton ball,” Blaine said, holding up another cup. “Close your eyes.”

Kurt did as instructed, and felt the warm, wet cotton gently dabbing at his face, followed by a soft towel. Kurt opened his eyes again.

“There. No more dried blood.”

Next, Blaine picked up the tub of night cream that Kurt kept in the bathroom, and began to apply it gently. He’d watched Kurt go through the process so many times that he was swift and perfect, and Kurt couldn’t help but feel just a little bit better for knowing that what was left of his unblemished skin would remain so. Just a week ago, the attention would have felt cloying and suffocating, but after an attack, with his whole body painful and numb at once, it was nice to have someone else to worry about his skin cream and hydration levels. Not constantly, but just for now.

“And for my last trick,” Blaine said, and with a sudden twinkle in his eye he pulled away the blanket he had tucked into one side of the tray and spread it over Kurt’s feet for an extra layer of warmth there. “Santana’s chocolate.”

“She’s going to kill us,” Kurt laughed as Blaine handed him the chocolate bar with a yellow post it note attached that read ‘IF ANY OF YOU LOWLIVES SO MUCH AS LOOK AT THIS CHOCOLATE IMMA HUNT YOU DOWN AND TORTURE YOU THAT MEANS YOU HUMMEL’.

“She’ll understand,” Blaine shrugged, then grinned evilly as Kurt pulled off the note, tore open the wrapper, and ate a chunk. He held out the bar to Blaine, who broke off a piece of his own and happily ate it. Kurt hadn’t realized he was hungry until he started eating, but soon he had eaten most of the chocolate by himself while Blaine took away the tray, poured a glass of water, and fussed over the sheets and pillows.

Rachel soon brought in two steaming cups of chamomile tea but left again quickly, wishing Kurt a good night’s sleep. Blaine sat beside Kurt with his legs outstretched, but he stayed above the covers while they drank their tea in silence and the loft slowly grew quieter as the shock of the night wore off and everyone finally went to bed.

“Stay tonight,” Kurt said quietly. “Please?”

“Of course,” Blaine nodded, and reached out his hand to hold Kurt’s, brushing his thumb over his knuckles and the angry red grazes that adorned them. He took Kurt’s empty cup from his hand and stacked it into his own on his nightstand, the two saucers underneath, and left the bed to change into the pajamas he’d left behind when he moved out. Kurt watched him carefully folding his clothes and laughed to himself. He’d seen Blaine’s bedrooms both at home and with Sam when he hadn’t been expecting him to visit, so he knew that the way Blaine would fold his clothes neatly around him was all for show and only a little bit because Kurt would usually nag him about it otherwise. Not tonight, though. Blaine could’ve thrown his clothes into the messiest heap possible, and Kurt wouldn’t have cared enough to complain. He just wanted to go to sleep with his fiancé before the painkillers wore off.

Being snug under the covers with Blaine by his side felt like home. It took a while to negotiate a snuggle position that both didn’t hurt Kurt and wouldn’t cause Blaine to have no feeling in his limbs, but Kurt wanted to be in Blaine’s arms. Needed to. He hadn’t felt scared until the lights went out and there was nothing but darkness and the memory. He focused hard on Blaine’s arms carefully around his waist, on the way their breathing matched and the way he smelled. He forced out thoughts of cold and shouting and pain. He tried to force them out. They crept back again and again, and it was hard to stop the flood of dark, terrifying images. He didn’t sob or bawl, just sniffled quietly against Blaine’s chest and let the tears leak out as Blaine held him and kissed his head and said nothing.

“It was my worst fear,” Kurt whispered once he’d caught his breath. “That something like this would happen while we were apart or broken up or – “

“Shh,” Blaine comforted. “I’m here now. I’m always here.”

Kurt didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t remember much until he turned over to check the time and it all came screaming back. The clock hands were edging towards the six and twelve and the loft was filled with silence and early morning sunlight. Kurt managed to pull himself upright, slowly and cringing through the pain, less than it had been last night, more of a deep ache, but still enough to render him breathless. He drank a glass of water in one gulp and shakily poured another, spilling some. He pulled sheets of tablets out from boxes and squinted at the directions before popping a handful out of their blister packs and swallowing them with a mouthful of water.

“You’re awake,” Blaine mumbled beside him, and Kurt smiled at his crumpled morning face.

“You’re not,” Kurt countered, and Blaine gave a tiny groan and shuffled until he was sitting too.

“How d’you feel?”

“I think a bit better,” Kurt said. “Not quite as painful as I remember, though that might be all of this clouding my judgment.” Kurt gestured at his hospital-issued selection of drugs and smiled.

“Good,” Blaine said, rubbing his eyes to force himself awake. “You’re still going to stay in bed. For today at least, if not tomorrow as well.”

Kurt breathed a laugh and rolled his eyes. He may have been mentally planning an escape from his bedridden confines, but of course Blaine was thinking ahead of him on that.

“I’ll bring the TV in here,” Blaine continued. “I mean, you can watch TV on a laptop, but I think we can swing the actual TV set on the grounds of your being indisposed.”

“You know what I could really use?” Kurt said, latching onto Blaine’s desire to fill his bedrest with comforts. “A decent cup of coffee and some blueberry pancakes.”

Kurt lay in bed, propped up by pillows, watching early morning TV on the lowest possible volume on a communal TV procured for him before anyone else woke up to argue with the idea. The air filled with the scents of brewing coffee and sizzling pancake batter. The painkillers were working their magic and nothing hurt quite so much anymore. The sunlight burst through the windows in beams and caught dancing specks of dust in their wake. He was alive.


End file.
